{"id":234846,"date":"2026-04-16T22:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T22:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/234846\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T22:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T22:20:07","slug":"400-central-development-central-ave-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/234846\/","title":{"rendered":"400 central development central ave businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 On Wednesday, the first retail shop broke ground at 400 Central, the part-residential, part-office high rise downtown. But other businesses in that area have mixed reactions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Central Avenue in St. Petersburg is experiencing major growth and new development, including 400 Central, the county’s tallest tower
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Some businesses on Central Avenue say the construction, paired with the pandemic, has impacted their bottom line
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The first retail shop to open at 400 Central broke ground Wednesday
Mayor Ken Welch says the revival of Central Avenue is by design<\/p>\n

400 Central, the tallest tower in Pinellas County<\/a>, now casts a shadow over much of Central Avenue and the businesses that\u2019ve been there through it all.<\/p>\n

Like La V Vietnamese Fusion, owner Thuy Lee opened the restaurant 14 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, I didn\u2019t know the city would grow this much. Truthfully, back then, it benefitted a lot of us that are considered \u2018OG.\u2019 We helped make St. Pete what St. Pete is today,\u201d said Lee.<\/p>\n

For a while, Lee says the now bustling area was like a ghost town. She\u2019s seen good days and bad, but nothing like the one-two punch that was the pandemic and\u00a0the five years of\u00a0construction\u00a0at\u00a0400 Central.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just hanging on right now, obviously since COVID and since the construction,\u201d Lee said. \u201cAt this point, I\u2019d say a good 35-50% decrease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee says she\u2019s happy that one side of the street is back open for parking, but she\u2019s anxiously awaiting a\u00a0return to normal.<\/p>\n

Just a few doors down, Lonni\u2019s Sandwiches owner Phillip Ingram remembers when he bought the\u00a0sandwich shop\u00a0right before the pandemic. He\u00a0was one of the only options on the block, now he\u2019s got stiff competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think any negative thing that\u2019s happened has been offset by the amount of vendors and partners that have worked across the street,\u201d said Ingram. \u201cToday, our block is full, it\u2019s vibrant. There\u2019s a lot of different restaurant choices, a lot of businesses that\u2019re open.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

St. Pete Mayor Ken Welch, who was on hand for\u00a0Wednesday\u2019s\u00a0groundbreaking\u00a0of 400 Central\u2019s first retail partner, said that revival is all by design.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up here as a kid, I could literally throw a baseball down Central Avenue on a Saturday night and not hit anything. And so we\u2019re evolving, but we\u2019re doing it in a way that the public still has access to great amenities,\u201d Welch said.<\/p>\n

Those great amenities are great for the public, but for Lee, she\u2019s worried the area now is too saturated.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven with the residents moving in, it\u2019s not going to make a dramatic impact for me, simply because, as a consumer, they have a lot of options in the area,\u201d said Lee.<\/p>\n

Lee and Ingram both hope the new development keeps bringing in new customers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 On Wednesday, the first retail shop broke ground at 400 Central, the part-residential, part-office high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4323,1011,2031,274,558,1190,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":{"0":"post-234846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-andy-cole","9":"tag-app-human-interest","10":"tag-app-local-business","11":"tag-app-top-stories","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-human-interest","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-pinellas-county","16":"tag-st-pete","17":"tag-st-pete-headlines","18":"tag-st-pete-news","19":"tag-st-petersburg","20":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","21":"tag-st-petersburg-news","22":"tag-tampa","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}